Games for a laugh

The Olympic spoof Twenty Twelve has had viewers rolling in the aisles: but the scary thing is, it’s oh-so-real

Olympic lark: Hugh Bonneville and the man from Danny Boyle's team (Courtesy of BBC Worldwide)

T
he best comedy, Homer assures us, is drawn from life — it’s funny because
it’s true. (This Homer, of course, is Homer Simpson, because there aren’t
many gags in The Iliad.) For the ­dedicated followers of BBC2’s Olympics
sitcom, Twenty Twelve, however, it’s the other way round: life has been
imitating art since March 2011, when the real Olympics countdown clock broke
down just 24 hours after its fictional equivalent had juddered to a halt.

Last week’s final episode, apart from an utterly excellent bell-ringing
contest called the Big Bong, featured animal- rights groups complaining
about sheep appearing in the opening ceremony — just as Peta ­lobbied the
real-world ceremony organiser, Danny Boyle, over exactly the same thing —
alongside the more serious risk that the fireworks display would trigger the
­surface-to-air missiles. Indeed, Twenty Twelve viewers have delighted in
each fresh fiasco because they had already seen it happen.